New PEN/Pinter Prize

from SA 072209:
Awards: New PEN/Pinter Prize
Honoring a "British writer who shows exemplary 'engagement with the times,'" the new PEN/Pinter prize, named in honor of the late Harold Pinter, will be given annually by English PEN "to reward a writer who casts an 'unflinching, unswerving' gaze upon the world, and who shows a 'fierce intellectual determination . . . to define the real truth of our lives and our societies,'" the Guardian reported.

The winner will receive £1,000 (US$1,645), and £1,000 will be given "to an imprisoned writer of conscience of their choice, selected in consultation with English PEN's Writers in Prison Committee," according to the Guardian. The initial prize, to be presented on October 14 at the British Library, will be judged by Pinter's widow, Antonia Fraser, Tom Stoppard, English PEN president Lisa Appignanesi, broadcaster Mark Lawson and National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner.